"We ARE skipping the next several doors. It's boring and repetitive, all they're doing is making her slowly go insane and desperate enough to believe whatever they say. To DO whatever they say. It's boring, and I hate it, so you can skip it." Veeran announces once the Doctor has caught up. According to the being, they're about four months in to the memories now, and the Doctor has counted 7 more instances where the people in the memory–always the Shadow and either a Time Lord or Veeran's doll–were staring at him. It's always him, though, and always when Veeran's not there. He wants to mention it, although with no way to prove it as it never happens around him, paired with Veeran's clear contempt, he doubts the entity would believe him. "Spill it." Veeran sighs suddenly, pausing with his tail lashing slowly. In however long they've been together, time being meaningless in this place, the Doctor has picked up on the signs Veeran displays when concealing their true emotions. It's mostly just anger, frustration, and disdain or scorn. "You have this face. When you're thinking about something that's eating at you. What is it?" Veeran studies his face, moving around him a few times to inspect him. "What makes it different from me thinking about everything else so far?" The Doctor asks, sidestepping the original question for now. "This one is new. Your earlier face was more like it was focusing on a puzzle laid out before it. This one's like you're almost anxious about something. You've checked your surroundings at least twice in the past 10 minutes, you keep resting your hand on your sonic screwdriver like you're reminding yourself it's still there, and your pace is either quick or silent." Veeran's observations render him silent for a moment, stunned. He hadn't even noticed the pace difference. "There's something wrong. The people are watching me." The Doctor admits. Veeran goes still. "Then why haven't I seen this?" He challenges. "You're gone by the time they look." He explains, deeply regretting his lack of information. "And you're SURE they were watching you?" Veeran emphasizes the word, ears pricked and golden eyes fixed on him. "It's happened 7 times now. I'm sure." Veeran looks away, increasingly agitated. "Congratulations, Doctor, you're experiencing the ONE thing that could possibly endanger you." Veeran sighs, tail lashing aggressively, now, and they pinch the bridge of their nose. "And what's that?" The Doctor inquires. "They're becoming self-aware. I can only assume that it started when you used the sonic screwdriver, but I've seen it before, too. Shadow's mind is a dark and painful place. And this pocket of it is comprised of her worst pains and fears and confusions. These aren't just memories, they're the last living remnants of what happened here. And she made them LIVING. They're aware, or at least have the potential to be. I thought I'd made them dormant again, but your appearance seems to have disturbed them." Veeran scowls at him, annoyed but also stressed. "So my job gets a whole lot harder. Thanks for that. Come on, now we're on a time limit." With new urgency, Veeran floats away, swiftly moving down the corridor that appears to never end. The Doctor runs after him, feeling like he's gained another step, but discovered he's still another several paces behind. "We'll be skipping even more doors. Here's what you need to know: over the course of the next two hundred years, the Time Lords break her mind. They make her nothing more than a tool for them to use; they make her subservient. They make her forget about her family and life outside, and drill the hate and need to destroy the Daleks into her. They compare her to you, making her question her self-worth, and become solely dependent on them and what little validation they give her. Then, then, they decide she's ready." Veeran pauses. "I truly was her only friend, in this place. She was so BROKEN she no longer knew what was real and what was in her head. That was when they thought they could advance to the next stage." Veeran stops at a door, shoulders tense, barely repressed emotions under his masked expression. "No dawdling. Watch, and then we're getting out and moving on." He orders curtly. The Doctor nods, opening the door. 

Inside is the first Time Lord, the one she had in her first memory. "We've got something for you. Something to help you fight the Daleks." He explains, his voice less falsely sweet and more commanding, and the Shadow looks up at him. She is haggard, languid, and exhausted, her eyes are dull and sunken, her skin is pale and sickly, and overall, she looks unhealthy. She seems hollow and empty, like whatever fire she'd had when the Doctor first met her wasn't there. "Give me your hand, and I'll show you." Without waiting for her consent, he takes her hand, producing a strange disk-shaped object, which has three points in the middle, like the points of a triangle. He suddenly sticks it into the top of her hand, and quickly steps back as she cries out, dropping the doll and doubling over. She's wrapped in the glow of regeneration energy, and as she screams, her features change. There's a twist in the Doctor's gut as he realizes it's actually KILLING her. It doesn't just happen once, though. She continues to change, her voice becoming distorted and warped with each regeneration she goes through, until finally, it ends, and laying collapsed on the floor and trembling is the girl the Doctor met, if perhaps a little younger-looking.

 To his horror, he's counted each 12 regenerations used up in the span of maybe a minute. She lays there, unmoving, and the disk falls off her hand, leaving three marks where it was jabbed into her. The Time Lord approaches then, taking the disk and the doll, crouching in front of her. "How do you feel?" He asks. "It hurts, Glaezieus...why does it hurt so much? Make it stop!" She replies, voice hoarse and cracked from her shrieks, a bolt of pity running through the Doctor for her. Glaezieus doesn't seem all that concerned, though. "You're strong now. Powerful. Powerful enough to kill the Daleks. You can't be strong if you don't get hurt." He tells her. "Now get up." The Doctor swallows a burst of outrage. She just went through excruciating AGONY! Surely he can wait for her to recover? She's a CHILD! "Glaezieus doesn't care. Not sure if you noticed, but he was never kind to her. But now he has what he wants. All she is, is a TOOL to him, now." Veeran says suddenly, angry and intently watching the two on the other side of the glass like they're willing to smash it to get at the Time Lord. "Now watch." He quells the Doctor's questions and flicks his tail to indicate to the glass. Carefully, the Shadow complies, arms quaking as she props herself up. Glaezieus offers her the doll. "Make it walk around." He orders, an odd command to give after putting her through such an ordeal. What was it even for, anyway? What could be worth putting her through such torture? Confused, the Shadow takes the doll and starts playing with it, giving it the impression of walking. Glaezieus shakes his head and takes it back. "No, I mean use your mind. MAKE it MOVE. On its own. Like it's alive." He elaborates, slightly annoyed at having to explain it further. Shadow takes a moment to comprehend what he's asking of her, but seems to get the idea when she fixes her attention to the doll, eyes going distant and unfocused. She remains this way for a few moments, before the doll abruptly jumps up, leaps out of Glaezieus' hand, and starts running and dancing around, much to Shadow's surprise and joy. She laughs a bit, watching the once inanimate object move around, as though alive. Glaezieus grins. The memory ends. "Now you'll start to understand. Come on. No time to waste." Veeran turns sharply and leaves. The Doctor lingers a moment, digesting what he just saw. She died, multiple times, and because of that she managed to make the Veeran doll move on its own. There's no connection between that and everything else I've come to understand she can do: the growth, the spines, the way she put away her memories but managed to bring me into them, there's no common factor among any of them. It's like she's able to bend reality itself, changing what is and what isn't. But that isn't possible. Shouldn't be, anyway. Perhaps it's just a random set of  abilities they accumulated and put into her? This makes more sense to him. The disk would probably have held whatever gave her these powers, and the points he saw would be needles. This still doesn't entirely answer why she was killed so many times, and as swift as the process was, it was clearly unbearable. Were they trying to rewrite her biological code or something? 

"Doctor." 

His head snaps up, surprised. Glaezieus is staring at him, having walked up to the glass, head tilted slightly to one side. "You should have stayed away." Glaezieus' voice is low and dark, however echoed the tone of a parent chiding their child. "You shouldn't have come. These were not made for your eyes." The slight chill in the air seems to increase, meanwhile in the middle of the Doctor's chest, or where one of his hearts would be, is growing hot. Without warning, Galezieus slams the disk into the glass, the points causing cracks to appear, but not penetrate. The Doctor flinches, taking a step back, hearts hammering. "And it will be your end." Glaezieus grins, then freezes, gaze  focusing on something behind the Doctor. "You won't be dealing with him anymore." Veeran informs the Time Lord, moving forward, head raised in an authoritative manner. He steps in front of The Doctor, waving him back with his tail. "You cannot protect him forever." Glaezieus hisses, however Veeran remains expressionless, finally masking any sign of reaction or feeling as he challenges his opponent. After a moment of nothing happening, Veeran turns on their claws and walks away, beckoning for the Doctor to follow with only their tail. He slams the door shut behind him. "I TOLD YOU TO BE QUICK."  He begins, growing to 12 feet again and bending over so his face is inches from the Doctor's. "Now they'll be trying to break out after you view the memory, if they aren't already. I was SO specific, there wasn't a way to mess that up! But of course YOU would find a way, wouldn't you?" Veeran sighs, exasperated and high-strung. "I can barely piece everything together before moving on at this pace! I have to take a few seconds to process what I saw and add it to whatever else I know. You're trying to make me understand what's happening and what HAS happened to her, but I can't if I can't even THINK about it." The Doctor explains defensively, recovering from the momentary shock and coming back to the 'now'. "Then be better. This is a CHILD who needs your HELP. Are you going to fail her again?" Veeran snarls, his statement making the Doctor hesitate. "You want to know why you were allowed in here at all? She's scared. Broken. Lonely. Like you, she thought she was the last of the Time Lords, but a monster as well. She never got a chance to grow up, she's still a child inside. And she needs saving. Protecting. She had hoped that you would come and help her, so often. And you never came. You had no idea she even EXISTED. But now,  you're here. She won't admit it, but she wants you to help her. She wants to feel WHOLE again." As Veeran speaks, the Doctor is silent, mostly speechless. Of course he knew she needed some sort of help, especially after hearing about the Time Lords trying to break her, but he didn't expect it to be this deep. "Of course I'll help her. But I can't DO that if I can't understand and comprehend what happened." Veeran stares at him long and hard for a moment. Finally they growl and look away. "When you don't understand something, TALK TO ME. That's why I'm here. Just because I don't WANT you to be here doesn't mean I won't help you. At least then we can keep moving as you think." He still has that venomous, scathing bite to his words, but he does at least sound sincere nonetheless. "Now come on, let's go...again."